Altcoins Explained: Beyond Bitcoin

Well in the cryptocurrency space there is always much talk about bitcoin more than any crypto asset, and this may probably be because this is the foundation of any other crypto asset as the creation of bitcoin makes the creation of other crypto asset possible as they all followed the blue print laid by bitcoin.

Now when we speak of cryptocurrencies we have bitcoin the father of cryptocurrencies and we have altcoins. The term altcoin is used to refer to any other cryptocurrencies there is other than bitcoin, yes it comprises of the wide variety of cryptocurrencies in the crypto space, any other cryptocurrencies other than bitcoin is referred to as altcoin and I will like to break what this altcoin mean further.

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Dive Into Altcoins

Well we know that bitcoin is digital currency and that's same for altcoin but this altcoin are designed in a unique way in that they are not just in the form of digital currency or a payment method but serves different purposes in the financial system and some of them actually functions like smart contract like ethereum for instance and some as a governance mechanism some other form of altcoins also serves as decentralized applications and so much more, so this altcoins serves or have utilities unique to each of them other than serving as a digital currency.

Also whilst bitcoin technogy that's the blockchain is the foundation for the creation of every other cryptocurrencies yet there is a slight difference in the technogies this altcoin employ that's in terms of it's consensus mechanism, bitcoin is a cryptocurrency which uses the well known proof of work (PoW) consensus mechanism whilst most of this altcoin uses a different form of technogy like the proof of stake (PoS), Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS), Proof of capacity (PoC) and proof of importance amidst other wonderful and unique technogy that shows it's variation from bitcoin.

Also this altcoins all tend to have a particular usecase which makes it easier for the to get wide adoption from industries globally and some of this involves for the case of solana for instance it's that it's a decentralized application or it's used for the development of decentralized application and trx also has a unique usecase in that it is used in paying for transaction fees and it also provides a platform for the creation of smart contract and they contribute immensely in decentralized application that's on the chain network whilst we also have ripple which helps for making it easier for payment to be processed faster and cheaper international transactions, hence this unique usecase of different altcoins helps in adoption by industries.

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When we talk about cryptocurrencies volatility it's much more common in altcoins than in bitcoin as bitcoin moves there are some altcoins that follow bitcoin closely in it's price movement and there are others that it's movement may not really depend on bitcoin price movement in that they don't closely follow the price movement of bitcoin due to probably their unique design and technogical structure.

Well when it comes to cryptocurrencies investment, bitcoin is a more stable form of investment as compared to other altcoin as this altcoin experience far more extreme price volatility as compared to bitcoin which means in and event of bad market conditions one invested in altcoins is more likely to experience more loss than one invested in altcoin in that same way in an event of good market conditions altcoin investment tend to offer more profit or generate more roi as compared to bitcoin so in general altcoins tend to have more risk and more reward in comparison to bitcoin.

Conclusion

Altcoins are really not bad in themselves though in cases of investment one should be careful to look into more stable altcoin for investment purpose as there are those that are more stable than others and has better usecase making for great sustainability especially in extreme market especially altcoins like ethereum, bnb, solana, magic amidst others.